


Outfoxed

by tbjeebies



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 20:28:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2520776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tbjeebies/pseuds/tbjeebies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's always been something very strange about Naruto. How was he such a genius in some ways and an idiot in others? But when his rival dies and he's powerless to stop it, his dream changes and he goes in a different direction. Logical applications of chakra, secrets from the start. Pairing's a secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Logical Conclusion

 

An inch might as well be a mile. That was what Haku was thinking, at least, as her ice senbon slid into the neck of the Uchiha heir. She'd accounted for him squirming out of the way of her senbon, but not for his preternatural eyes. She'd calculated where he was going to dodge and thrown accordingly. He'd seen her minute muscle tensions and started to dodge before she even threw, throwing off her calculations.

It was funny what an inch of difference could make. The difference between, say, an innocent nerve cluster that could paralyse, and the carotid artery.

Sasuke went down in a gush of blood as Naruto looked on, stunned.

"Sasuke!" he screamed, ignoring the battle and rushing to his teammate's side.

"Dobe," Sasuke said. His voice was quavering as he spoke, and his eyes were unfocused. He reached up his hand to poke Naruto's forehead. "Don'-"

The voice trailed off as Sasuke's eyes closed and he lost consciousness.

"Sasuke! Hold on! I'll get us out of here!"

"It is hard to lose your precious people, isn't it?" Haku said. "I'm sorry to tell you that your path will only lead to more of this."

"Shut. Up," the blonde replied, the temperature inside the ice dome rising. "You don't get to say anything right now. I'll kill you!"

Haku had been preparing to fly out of one of the mirrors, but was blasted back by a wave of oppressive chakra.

"What is this boy?" she wondered.

* * *

Kakashi and Zabuza were at a stalemate; oversized cleaver being held at bay by a simple kunai. The wave of chakra awoke tragic memories in Kakashi, while Zabuza wondered out loud.

"What the hell is that?"

"That's the cue for us to finish this," the cyclops said.

He jumped back, ran a finger through a cut on his arm, and summoned his nin-dogs. They burst into being all around Zabuza and bit down hard, holding him in place, as Kakashi gripped his right wrist.

'I hope I'm not too late...'

"Chidori!"

* * *

Another mirror cracked under the enraged jinchūriki's assault and Haku found that she no longer had the chakra control to repair it. The red mist permeating the dome was burning her and ruining her concentration. She braced herself as a blood red claw came out of the mist and batted her through a cracked mirror and out of the dome, in clear sight of her master.

"Zabuza-sama," she said, just in time to see Kakashi's hand cleave through his torso. Her wail of anguish was loud and tragic enough to reach everybody on the bridge - even Naruto in his demonic haze. The cheerful blonde's normal personality broke through and the red chakra receded, forced down by his consciousness.

The copy-nin withdrew his hand, watching the life leave his foe's eyes, as the chakra mist sustained by Zabuza's life receded, giving everyone on the bridge a clear view of Gato's mercenary army.

"Shit, you've seen us," Gato said. "Should've hired some better ninja to take care of you. He was a loser and a weakling, but I thought the demon of the mist would at least be able to off a few treehuggers. You get what you pay for, I guess."

The enfeebled Haku staggered to her feet and lumbered over to the magnate.

"Zabuza-sama was NOT a weakling. He was one of the seven swordsman of the mist, and a far better man than you."

"Says his tool. Funny, I thought tools couldn't speak. And I haven't forgotten you breaking my wrist. No... Boys?" the diminutive man said, addressing his mercenary army. "Kill her. Kill all of them. A bonus for whoever can bring me a head and whoever can bring me the loser's sword."

At the blatant disrespect of her father figure, Haku's chakra recovered and started to spike. Kakashi guided Tazuna and Sakura away from Gato, leaving Naruto well alone for the moment. The normally cheerful blond was recovering from his bloodlust, with the red chakra running through his body evaporating slowly.

Haku ran through a series of one-handed seals and screamed. Mirrors coalesced along the sides of the bridge, leaving a corridor occupied solely by the ice ninja and the hired army. As if on cue, the mercenaries rushed forward and Haku sprang into action.

She darted into a mirror and was instantly transported to the rear of the army, where she took down the last row of men with a series of jagged ice spears. Gone was the control over ice and accuracy with senbon that the Konoha team had come to know her for. Hearing the screams of their comrades, several mercenaries turned around, only to be met with a field of bloody ice. Haku darted to the front of the army and repeated the slaughter. The charging men finally stopped, hemmed in on all sides by ice mirrors or a minefield of frozen javelins. With her enemies' movements halted, Haku emerged from the rear of the bridge and slowly moved through hand signs.

"You took my purpose for living from me. Now I will show you despair. Ice Style: Needle Forest Technique!"

From the ground, the air, and the mirrors on either side of the bridge, lances made of ice came into existence and shot through the crowd of men, crisscrossing at high velocity and embedding themselves in anything that came across their path. After thirty seconds, the technique ended and Haku collapsed to the ground, separated from the Konoha ninja by a forest of ice. Just as she struggled to get to her feet and leave, a thick boot stamped down on her neck and planted her back into the ground.

"Fancy. But you ninja are useless once you run out of chakra," Gato said. "The great leveller, I suppose. Even I'm enough to take you out of the equation now."

He was clutching a ninja-to that had been hidden previously, and brought it down to skewer Haku in the torso. But suddenly, a clawed hand burst out of his chest and the blade fell to the ground, only cutting the floored girl slightly.

"It was you," Naruto growled, as his blood-red eyes narrowed at the businessman. "She may have thrown the needle, but you sent the order."

Gato tried to speak, to use his silver tongue to escape this situation, but words finally failed him when the leaf ninja's hand withdrew and his lifeblood splattered along the bridge.

"Feel happy I granted you this mercy," Naruto said. "It's more than you deserve."

With that, the Kyūbi's chakra receded for a second time and the jinchūriki collapsed next to the rogue ninja. He stared into her eyes as his sensei finally bypassed the ice forest and tended to his student. The shame and regret in Haku's eyes stayed with him far after he lapsed into unconsciousness.

* * *

"Somebody would have to carry and feed her. It's too much hassle. We should just kill her and leave her here. It's as much as she deserves for killing Sasuke-kun!"

"That isn't our decision to make, Sakura. The fight is over now. She has a valuable bloodline that Konoha may be able to use, and executions are the team leader's decision. As team leader, I think the Hokage would rather I stayed my hand and brought her home. That is that, and the end of the discussion."

The bedroom door closed as Kakashi walked out and Naruto woke up. He lifted himself into a sitting position and surveyed the room.

"Sakura-chan, what were you talking about?"

"Oh Naruto, you're-"

She crashed into him, hugging him tightly and tearing up. Naruto stiffly put his arms around her and let her cry, reflecting on how, even a day ago, this would have been a dream come true. Now he just patted her back and let the tears flow, trying valiantly not to break down too.

* * *

Hatake Kakashi had been a broken man since long before he'd taken on Team 7. Broken since the death of his teammate, and fractured even further when he'd been forced to kill his remaining teammate. Then his sensei died, along with a sizeable portion of the village, and he'd thrown himself into the ANBU Black Ops in an attempt to find peace or death. Now his chance at possibly redeeming himself, of protecting Obito's legacy, was ruined. And it was his fault. As jōnin, he'd made the call to continue the mission. Despite his students' enthusiasm, the responsibility fell solely on him. And it ate at him.

He had sealed Sasuke's body into a scroll, as well as Zabuza's and his giant sword. The spoils of war would be wanted by the Hokage, even though Kakashi doubted they would result in leniency in any way. The last loyal Uchiha was dead, and his head would roll for this. True, he was the last wielder of the Sharingan in his village, but two new eyes had come onto the market, making him… potentially replaceable.

The villagers that Inari had rounded up hadn't had to do anything in the end, merely coming onto the scene of a slaughter and seeing their bridge turned into a grotesque monument to ninjutsu. Work was halted until the ice melted and the body parts could be cleared away, which was estimated to take nearly a week. In that time, Team 7 was still required to guard the bridge builder - with all that had happened, they weren't going to let the mission fail as well. Kakashi wouldn't let the mission fail. He wasn't trash. No, he thought, as he looked across the bridge and the scene of his student's death. No, he was something much worse.

* * *

Sakura had left to wander around the recovering village, and Naruto was alone. The truth had finally sunk in - Sasuke  _was_  dead, it wasn't some illusion or hallucination. The blond ninja had always been lighthearted in the worst of situations, somehow taking all the grief from his village and turning it into motivation. He wanted to become Hokage, have everybody acknowledge him, and protect his previous people. But he now realised - that dream was backwards. He'd already lost a teammate. He may not have ever vocalised it, but Sasuke was important to him. A benchmark, an object of scorn, and somehow, along the way, a friend. The boy had sacrificed himself so that Naruto could live. That was the mark of a comrade. A friend.

But becoming the Hokage in order to protect his precious people was useless if they were already dead. You can't succeed to office in order to gain the people's respect - you must already have it. And that was when Naruto's plans fell to pieces around him. No, his dream was backwards. First he would protect his precious people. Then he would gain recognition. And it was then, and  _only_ then, he could become Hokage. More than that, he had to live for both himself and Sasuke now, which meant following Sasuke's dream.

'I have work to do if I want to become Hokage,' he thought. 'And kill… a particular man.'

* * *

The clearing where he had first met Haku was quiet now. There was still dew collected in the grass and marks on the trees from where he'd been practicing tree climbing. With a cross seal, he summoned two shadow clones and issued orders.

"I want you to go and scout the area, see if there's anybody nearby. And I want you to do the tree climbing exercise, so I can watch and see if there's any way I can improve."

The clones nodded and got to work. Naruto scrutinised his clone as it slowly tottered up the tree, and saw a few moments where the chakra flow cut off and the clone slipped.

"It's harder than before, boss," the clone said. "I think we have more chakra than we did before."

Naruto nodded, confused, as he continued to watch the clone's progress. After the second ascent, a whirlwind of disconnected memories slammed into his head. His clone that had been sent to scout had been distracted by a squirrel and tripped over a root, slamming into the ground and dispelling itself. Naruto looked around the clearing in confusion, as his clone fell out of the tree and dispersed into a cloud of smoke. The memory influx happened again, and this time Naruto could tell that the clone had been just as confused as he was, and unable to stay glued to the tree.

Naruto was by no means stupid. What he lacked was an effective formal education, experience and wisdom. While no ninja his age would be expected to have the latter two qualities, everybody expected him to have the former, leading to the general ninja populace's assumption that the boy was just a bit dense. But Naruto, in his own way, was rather brilliant. He'd pieced together a usable, if pathetic, taijutsu style despite being taught all the wrong forms in the academy and being criticised whenever he got something right. He'd managed to survive despite grossly inflated grocery prices in the village. His kunai and shuriken accuracy was decent, despite the wrongly-weighted equipment he'd been 'gifted' by a 'concerned villager'. His textbooks had been altered to show all the wrong handseals, causing Naruto difficulty with even the most basic of techniques. But he'd still managed to learn the kawarimi and henge techniques, with the basic clone technique only being out of reach due to his abysmal chakra control. When he'd left the academy, he'd barely known what chakra  _was_ , but was still using it passably. And when presented with a scroll of forbidden techniques that hardly any of his village's ninja knew, he'd learned one of them in less than an hour, whilst avoiding ANBU, and being hardly able to read the complicated language the scroll used.

"So, what did the scroll say?" he muttered, dredging up the sentences he'd tried to memorise. "Compression and crystallisation of expressed chakra, resulting in a user facsimile with equal chakra distribution and identical memory and personality traits. Facsimile combat proficiency a fraction of the original's potential, but can be increased with technique mastery and chakra control. Provides an even distribution of chakra amongst summoned clones and a return of chakra upon dispersement, dependent upon circumstances and intention of said dispersement. Ah!" he said, as he got to the line he'd been thinking of. "Memories and experiences of facsimile are conveyed to the user and any existing facsimiles upon dispersement, making this an effective technique for scouting and a minor complementary training tool. Caution: dispersement in excess of ten facsimiles, in any circumstance, has resulted in neural damage and even death, and the demanding chakra costs (even division of chakra) are beyond all but jōnin-level shinobi. To be classified as an A-rank kinjutsu based on these factors."

Naruto mulled this for a few minutes, trying to fill in the gaps and determine what that meant. His practical experience, having used the technique for a few months, allowed him to fill in the gaps. His clone's memories came back to him, and that meant he could learn things faster. Strategies, techniques, anything that wasn't physical. But back when he'd defeated Mizuki, he'd created nearly a thousand clones and they'd all dispersed at the same time. He'd then managed to wait for Iruka's medical help, return the scroll (under ANBU supervision), get lectured and congratulated by the old man in equal measure, and stumble home before passing out. The next morning he was fine again. That either meant the scroll was wrong, or that he was somehow different.

'Maybe they put that bit about the brain damage in there to scare people off using the technique for super awesome training, or the Hokage didn't want anybody pumping out thousands of them and becoming stronger than him! Or…' his thoughts turned to the malicious presence inside him. 'Maybe the fox is healing me all the time, and that's why I'm never tired after exercising, or after dismissing all those clones…'

Deciding to carry on with his training, Naruto summoned a hundred clones and set them all to find trees and start climbing. Every hour, twenty clones were to dismiss themselves and pass on the experience to the others, which would make the ones already practicing even better. Although he didn't know it, Naruto had uncovered the possibilities of exponential experience gain. Knowing that his body wouldn't benefit from shadow clone training, he started running, pushing his body as hard as he could.

* * *

When the five hours were up, Naruto was covered in sweat, sitting in the same clearing. The trees were covered in charred marks from all the chakra explosions from when his clones had started experimenting. It had been difficult to exercise while all the information rushed in, but he had soon learned to put the information influx towards the back of his mind while he concentrated on other things. He knew that getting distracted by a dispelled shadow clone could spell out death in battle. He put his hands in the ram seal to concentrate his chakra to summon more clones. Way more clones. His chakra control was better now, the result of about two weeks of accumulated experience, but his goal was perfect control. He remembered Iruka-sensei mentioning that one of the most advanced chakra control exercises involved following the path of chakra inside one's body with the mind's eye and then watching as you pumped it into the world around you. The first Hokage had apparently meditated like this for a week in the hills above Konoha before using the technique that created the forests they now lived within. He figured that, if he was going to learn a chakra control exercise to death, it might as well be the most difficult one possible.

It was amazing how much better his grasp of his chakra was now. He switched from the ram seal to the cross seal and shouted.

"Shadow Clone Technique!"

The clearing erupted into smoke as kage bunshin burst into being. The interesting thing about shadow clones is that they emerge knowing what their creator wants them to do, making verbal orders unnecessary. The thousand clones all ran off into the forest to find a secluded area to perform the meditation exercise in. These ones had been told that ten of them should disperse every six minutes. The blond knew that shorter intervals should speed up the training, and hopefully the dispersements would be easier to deal with. He got started on some punches and kicks while he waited for his clones to do their work. It would take ten hours for all of the clones to disperse, during which Naruto planned to exercise and get some sleep.

After eighteen minutes Naruto felt the pressure of his clones' experience grow strong, and the next set dispersing gave him a mild headache. This continued for the hour, until the first hundred were gone. The pressure reached a high point, and he collapsed mid-pushup.

* * *

Naruto awoke slumped against a wall covered in piping. He was shin-deep in stagnant water and he couldn't see an end to either side of the corridor he was in. Shrugging off the confusion, he picked a direction and trudged off into the distance. As he walked, he focused on his chakra and pulsed it, trying to see if this was an illusion. No deal.

The walk didn't end up taking too long before the corridor opened up into a huge room with a ceiling that led somewhere off into the distance. And, before him, a gigantic cage, held closed by a simple slip of paper.

 **"I didn't think I'd be seeing you so soon,"** a voice boomed from the darkness.

"Who are y-" Naruto stared as the figure loomed into view. "Kyūbi."

**"That's right, brat. Me. And you should be thanking me for bringing you here. I just saved you from death, or at least insanity."**

"What do you mean?"

**"The way you were dispelling your clones. With every clone you dispelled, the rest gained more experience that simply accumulated. You know how many hours of experience you'd racked up before I knocked you out and brought you here? Let's just say it measured in the years. Over three hundred thousand of them."**

"Three hundred thousand… years?"

**"Years. And you had nine hundred clones left with around the same amount of experience left. Each. Just thank your stars that I managed to dispel them without their knowledge getting passed on. Have you felt your chakra? It should feel like an extension of your body right now. Even I'm not as well-accustomed with my chakra as you will be when I finish filtering out your memories."**

"What do you mean by that?"

**"I'm holding onto the memories and experience so that you don't die from the psychic shock, slowly releasing them so that you don't go mad. Which brings me to the next part of our conversation. A deal."**

"What kind of deal were you thinking?"

**"I'm glad to see you realise I'm not doing this for free. As I'm sure you noticed, I was able to knock you unconscious and bring you here. I will swear not to do this again and filter your memories, in exchange for you learning how to make it nicer around here and letting me have the experience of your senses when I want."**

"So you basically want to spy on me from your nice house inside my mind. Well I have a requirement too. You give me willing access to your chakra whenever I need it."

**"I could agree to that, but for more than you're offering me so far. What I'd need for that… is for you to eventually rip off this seal and fight me for full control."**

"What? Bullshit. I can't defeat you in combat. You're a bijū! A force of nature. It isn't possible."

**"Possible? It's been done before, loath though I am to say. You'll have a chance, and five years to train. Then I get my chance to escape."**

"Twenty years."

The kyūbi gave a bone-rattling sigh.

**"Ten."**

"…fine. Deal."

* * *

Naruto came to, once again, in the clearing. His head was pounding, but his body felt more powerful than ever. He could feel the chakra flowing through his body like a series of waves; each tenketsu pulsed slightly. Figuring that he should get back to his team, he dusted himself off and started on a light jog back.

Kakashi was sitting in a tree overlooking the house when Naruto got back. The man was swinging his legs, staring vacantly into the sky. Naruto walked up the tree and stepped onto the same branch.

"Kakashi-sensei," he said.

The man tilted his head slightly, indicating that he was aware of the boy's presence.

"You need to get stronger. We all do."

Kakashi's head moved back, staring at the horizon once more.

"It wasn't a lack of strength that led to this," he said. "It was bad decisions. My bad decisions."

"Sensei… Regardless of why this happened or whose fault it was, we still need to get stronger. To stop this from happening again. What if, next time, it's Sakura who's at risk? Or me? Or the Hokage? And anyway, I have a new goal now. I need to fulfil Sasuke's ambition."

"You mean to kill that man?"

Naruto nodded.

"Do you even know who he meant?"

"I didn't, but I'm sure someone does. And he must have had a good reason for it."

"Naruto… You know that Sasuke was the last of his clan? Well there's a good reason for that. His clan was killed. Everyone he ever cared about, his entire family, killed. By his brother. For some reason, his brother spared Sasuke and Sasuke alone, torturing him before he fled the village and became a missing-nin. That's the man you say you have to kill… Uchiha Itachi, the man who singlehandedly destroyed Konoha's most prominent clan. You really think you can do that?"

Naruto was silent for a few seconds.

"Yes. I can do that. And you're going to help me."

Kakashi finally looked at Naruto, seeming to come out of his funk somewhat.

"And why? Why should I? You'd be safer if I just let you and Sakura find a different sensei. I know someone who'd happily take you on as an apprentice and I can get Sakura a place as a medic-nin. I've made too many mistakes to carry on teaching. I was better for the village in ANBU black ops. What have I even taught you? Teamwork exercises that mean nothing now. Tree climbing that's of no use against any serious enemy."

"We don't need you to spoon feed us every little thing. You taught us tree climbing. Well, we've both mastered that. We're still a team. All we need is some direction."

"You both completed the exercise passably, but I can't say you've mastered it. I didn't teach you that well."

"Want to try me?"

Kakashi sighed.

"Fine. If you've mastered the technique, you should be able to skate along vertical surfaces. It's a difficult technique that most people don't have the control to use or never bothered to learn. You channel enough chakra to the front of your foot to pull and channel more chakra to the back of your foot to push. The resulting imbalance lets you skim along without falling off."

Naruto stepped onto the trunk and concentrated. After a false start, he was happily zipping up and down the tree, laughing uproariously.

"Haha! This is great! Much better than walking."

He zipped all the way to the ground and started zipping around Tazuna's house, startling Tsunami as she looked up out of the window. He was stopped from his fun when Kakashi landed in front of him, having followed him via tree.

"How is that possible? You shouldn't have the control for that at all."

"I practiced, Kakashi-sensei. I told you."

Kakashi stared at the boy. His mind flashed back to a picture he'd seen in the shinobi archives, of his own sensei, the fourth Hokage, at the same age. The two of them were unmistakably similar, and Kakashi could finally see gleams of Minato's brilliance shining through in the boy. The third Hokage had never explicitly stated that Naruto was Minato's son, but Kakashi had been around when Kushina was pregnant, he'd known what the couple intended to call their child, and he knew that Minato was too noble to sacrifice any child other than his own. He'd had the opportunity to guard the child every so often but saw far more of Kushina in the kid than his father.

But chakra gliding took an intense level of chakra control. Typically only jōnin, genjutsu specialists or medics reached that level. And, as a genin of no more than two months, Naruto had reached the same level. Perhaps the boy was right.

"Okay, Naruto, I'll train you until we get back to Konoha. If I'm still your sensei after I report to the Hokage, then we'll see about carrying on. If you can bring Sakura out here then we can begin."

Naruto ran into Tazuna's house and pulled a morose Sakura out into the back garden.

"Why are you dragging me out here, baka?" she asked. "Can't you just leave me be?"

"Sensei is training us, Sakura. We need to keep our edge!"

The reluctant kunoichi let the enthusiastic blond drag her along until they came to a stop in front of their teacher. The brooding man pulled two slips of paper out of a pouch and handed them to the genin.

"This is chakra paper. You have to channel chakra into it and it will reveal your nature affinities."

"Oh, I've read about this," Sakura hummed. "Made from chakra trees, burns for fire, crumbles for earth, crumples for lightning, splits for wind and moistens for water."

Kakashi nodded.

"That's right. Now try it."

Sakura sent a pulse of energy into the paper and it crumbled to dust, which then start to smoulder. She let the particles fall through her fingers, giving a small 'huh' in surprise.

Naruto followed suit. The paper split into several pieces, a few of which moistened and turned into a sodden mess.

"Earth and fire for Sakura, wind and water for Naruto. Interesting. Of course, that only shows what you'll find easiest. I'm sure this won't stop Naruto from trying to learn lightning techniques though, will it?"

"You'd better believe it!" the teen shouted, falling back on his old personality. "What kind of Hokage would I be if I could only use two elements?"

* * *

"So let me get this straight. You decided to take a team of genin, a team which included the last member of a founding clan of the village and our village's jinchūriki, on a mission that had been misclassified as a C-rank but you knew could have enemy ninja targeting your team. Despite encountering an A-rank jōnin and his accomplice, you continued with the mission, directly resulting in the death of one of the previously-mentioned genin?"

Kakashi looked the Hokage in the eye as he nodded, concealed face drooping in guilt.

"That's about it, yes."

"So, before I make my decision, do you want to suggest how I should go from here? Because, honestly, it will be a hard decision either way."

"I know, Hokage-sama, and I'm sorry for putting you in this situation. If I could make a suggestion, it would be to give Sasuke's eyes to his remaining teammates and let me take them away. Train them. You can't trust my judgement on missions, but a training trip is within my abilities. Naruto has taken on Sasuke's reason for living, similarly to how I reacted to Obito's death. If sensei had been able to take us away and make us into a better team and better individual ninja, well… maybe I wouldn't have had to kill Rin."

Kakashi paused.

"It was killing Rin that awoke my Mangekyo Sharingan. I think that the trauma of Sasuke's death is still so raw that it could awake it in both Naruto and Sakura. I know it sounds mercenary, but the power of the Mangekyo Sharingan isn't something to be sniffed at or passed over."

"So," the Hokage said. "You want me to go directly over the heads of the clans and council, give your two remaining students Sharingan eyes, and let you take them out of the village,  _again_  for an extended period of time?"

Kakashi remained silent, not wanting to give the Hokage any better reason to refuse him.

"I will grant the first request and consider the second. I'm not sure I trust you without supervision for the foreseeable future, but I can see what is to be done. For now, bring Naruto and Sakura here so that I can talk to them alone. Inform Tenshu-san from the hospital that he is needed in the clinic in this building. And I will deal with the scrolls you brought back. Although this mission was increased to A-rank, I'm of half a mind to mark it as a failure as punishment. But it was no fault of your students, so I will let it remain. They will receive A-ranked pay and the bounty for Momochi's body. The Kubikiribōchō will be traded back to Mist in due time, likely when the civil war ends. Dismissed."

Kakashi disappeared in a burst of smoke and the Hokage was left alone with the three scrolls the jōnin had left.

"Oh dear. Sasuke… I'm so sorry Itachi," he said.

He took out his pipe and started puffing on it furiously. This was going to be a long week.

* * *

 


	2. Eye-to-Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the mission to Wave. Naruto finds a new mentor.

"You wanted to see me, Jiji?"

"That I did, Naruto-kun. You too, Sakura-kun. Please sit down."

He indicated two of the chairs that lined the outside of the room.

"As you know, Konoha genin take missions as a four-man cell, consisting of three genin and one jōnin. This is different for institute genin, but that doesn't matter right now."

"Institute genin?" Naruto blurted.

"People who fail the jōnin test don't just get thrown back into the civilian population, baka," Sakura said, weakly. "There's an institute that trains dropouts so that they're able to undertake simpler missions in five-man teams and eventually become chūnin."

"That's right. I've heard much about your prodigious memory, Sakura-kun. But that's not why we're here. I wanted to hear, in your own words, what happened on that mission, how Kakashi led your team, and how you feel about the consequences."

What followed was a description of the mission and the training Kakashi had put them through after Sasuke's death.

"It made me realise that there's no point becoming Hokage if I can't protect the people who are close to me. If I can't do that, how can I protect the village? Becoming Hokage won't make people magically respect me or instantly make me powerful. I need to make that happen before I become Hokage, so that's my ambition now. Not to mention that Sasuke needs somebody to carry on his ambition. I don't know how to revive his clan, but I can try my best to kill his brother."

Sarutobi nodded, turning to Sakura.

"And you?"

"I… I thought Sasuke was my reason for existing. Everything I did was to impress him. But then he was gone, and it left a void in my life. I had to find something to fill it, and all I could think of…"

She glanced at the blond to her side.

"Is that I don't ever want to feel like that again. I want to be strong enough to protect Naruto, and any other teammates I might have. I guess that's not a glamorous ideal, but it'll do for now."

"That's more than admirable. You seem to be dealing with things very maturely. Now don't take it as me underestimating you when I say that I'm going to order you to take a series of sessions with Yamanaka psychiatrists, because I'm not, but our earliest traumas as ninja are often our deepest. I remember the first time I lost a teammate, and I wish I'd had a professional to talk to about it.

Now that I know you're well, I need to broach a more painful subject. Are you familiar with the story of how Kakashi came to possess his Sharingan eye?"

"Yes. Sensei told us when he started training us."

"Then you'll know that Sharingan eye transplants are possible. And… we now have two unused eyes that need new users."

"What?" Naruto shouted. "Butcher Sasuke's body? For what? A little bit of power? You keep telling me that there are no shortcuts to power, Jiji, just like there are no shortcuts to becoming Hokage. Just take his body and bury it - put him to rest, and let the rest of us remember him as he was!"

"That would never happen, Naruto," the Hokage said. "While I agree that there should be no shortcuts, the council will demand that the eyes are transplanted. I can overrule them, but honestly, I see no reason not to. They are a useful resource, just another weapon in any good shinobi's arsenal, and they will be used to protect the village. The only question is who receives the implant. Right now I'm minded to give them to the two of you. If this goes to the council, I've no idea who Sasuke's eyes will go to. You said you wanted to let his memory live on. You can do that personally, looking through his eyes, or you can watch another random shinobi member do it."

"He has a point, Naruto," Sakura said. "Sasuke died to protect you. To protect both of us. He'd want his eyes to protect us too."

Naruto calmed down and crossed his arms.

"I… is this a good idea? I get the logic, but it just doesn't feel right."

"Would seeing somebody else with his eyes feel more right?"

"No. No, it wouldn't. Okay, I'll do it. Sakura?"

"I'll do it too."

"That's all I needed to hear," Sarutobi said. He raised his voice. "Tenshu?"

A distinguished-looking medic walked into the office, carrying a box full of files. He placed them on the desk and adjusted his glasses.

"Medical files for Haruno Sakura and Uzumaki Naruto. The onsite clinic is prepped. All I need is the eyes and your permission, Hokage-sama."

"You may have them both. I will need to oversee the operations."

"I understand. If you would all come with me?"

The medic led them from the office and down a level to a room the same size as the Hokage's office. It had been built in Hashirama's day for if the Hokage or other highly-placed personnel needed immediate medical attention. This meant that it was fully stocked, with an emergency team on 24/7 standby. The two genin were stripped down and given gowns before being placed on beds and given anaesthetic masks.

"Now these records say that Haruno-san's left eye is slightly dominant, so we will replace her right eye. Uzumaki-san's eyes are equally effective, so he will get Uchiha-san's left eye. I will perform Uzumaki-san's operation, while the hospital's head of opthalmology will perform Haruno-san's operate. Hokage-sama, are we clear to proceed?"

"You are. I'll see the two of you when you wake up."

The anaesthetist turned the valve and the gas started to flow into their masks. They were told to count back from ten. Sakura fell unconscious at six, but Naruto was still awake when he reached zero. Surprising the others in the room, he continued counting in negative numbers, finally dropping off at minus twelve.

"Is the resilience due to…"

"You can say that here, Tenshu. Yes, his tenant grants him resilience to all manner of things, and he will likely recover faster. Be careful to keep him under."

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

* * *

Naruto woke up after the operation, but just as he was being cleaned in the post-operation cleanup.

"Gah! Stop wiping my eyeball!"

"Naruto-kun, you're awake. How does it feel?"

Naruto's gaze swept around the room, one red and one blue eye trying to find focus.

"Whoa, it's weird. Like one eye sees things in normal and the other in slow motion. And I can see chakra! Old man, you're like a bonfire!"

"If I look like that, I can only imagine what you look like, Naruto. In fact, it might be best for the two of us to leave the room before Sakura wakes up. Seeing this much chakra may cause her eye strain."

Naruto nodded and jumped off the bed, strolling out of the room after giving Sakura a concerned glance.

"Hokage-sama, it should take days for the body to accept the implant, and for vision to be possible. He needs to be lying down!"

"You underestimate the Uzumaki physical resilience, coupled with his tenant's gifts. Naruto could run a marathon right now and feel no ill effects. But don't worry, I'm taking him to my office where I will make sure he sits down. Please inform us when Sakura is awake."

"Of course, Hokage-sama. Could you at least give him this eyepatch to wear?"

"I'll see what I can do."

The Hokage and the genin walked back up to Sarutobi's office, Naruto fussing over the eyepatch forced on him by the older man. The door closed behind them and Sarutobi dismissed his guards before asking Naruto the question that had been bugging him.

"Naruto, as Hokage I had to become proficient in just about every aspect of being a ninja. I can perform techniques from every element. I can interrogate a prisoner, build a pit trap, command an army and disembowel a man with my fingernails. But I am also an accomplished sensor, and that's why I wanted to talk to you. Your chakra has always felt wild and erratic. It must be, because your seal injects the kyūbi's chakra into your system periodically, increasing your reserves. But now your chakra is calm, tranquil, and controlled. How did this happen? I've met fire monks who have meditated their whole lives whose chakra isn't as calm as yours."

Naruto grinned and rubbed the back of his head.

"Heheh. I remembered what the scroll said about the shadow clone technique, and figured it could be used for training too. Since then I've been using it a lot, look."

The blond held out both hands and started to concentrate. After a few seconds, a gust of wind started to circulate around Naruto's right hand, eventually creating what looked like a weak rasengan made out of wind. After that, water started to coalesce out of thin air and form an unstable globe over his left hand. After a few more seconds he let the chakra flow fade away and the water dropped to the floor, the wind simply dissipating.

"That's all I've got for my elemental training so far. Sensei told me to only practice with shadow clones when I can be sure that I've got the technique for each step perfectly, otherwise my mistakes could become instinct. So he teaches me the leaf cutting exercise, makes sure I know what I'm doing, and then lets me train with shadow clones. It's slower than I could go, but it makes a lot of sense."

"Naruto, that's nothing short of amazing. Hang on, there's something I want to give you."

He got up from his seat and walked over to the bookcase, picking out a slim and faded red volume. He walked back to Naruto and handed it over.

"A Shinobi Performance Manual. I wrote it myself. It contains the uncompromising standards I held myself to when training, but it was too exacting to become required reading. I don't believe in over-specialisation. If a genjutsu specialist fights a Sharingan user, they'll have nearly no chance to survive. Taijutsu specialist against an advanced genjutsu user? Not everybody can learn a thousand jutsus, but you, with your ability to throw out shadow clones, can do it. Take a read. You may even enjoy it."

"Wow, thanks Jiji. I'll treasure it."

"There's no need to go that far. There are other copies, but I appreciate the sentiment. As you know, the Sharingan can sense chakra through walls and bindings, so going near Sakura now may be too much for her. I suggest you create several clones to go home and start reading that book, and your chakra levels should have reduced to a low enough level that you won't cause your friend eye strain."

"No problem, old man! I'll see you soon!"

The knuckle-headed genin moved to leave the room.

"Oh, one more thing, old man. Would it be alright if I visited Haku?"

The Hokage's cheerful face dropped a few notches.

"I'm not sure I can allow that, Naruto. Although you must be hurting, we're still determining her guilt and punishment. She's under supervision at all times to ensure her safety."

"Oh, no, not that. I just wanted to talk to her. It's been really hard, dealing with Sasuke's death, and I didn't even do it. I've no idea how she must be feeling."

The Hokage's smile came back, realising that the boy didn't have the appetite for revenge.

"Well, in that case, I suppose I could authorise a few meetings. No more than a half-hour a day, but maybe it will do the both of you some good."

"Do you know what's going to happen to her?"

"Honestly? It's a toss-up. She ended one of the founding clans of this village, but she also represents the opportunity to give Konoha another bloodline, and it would be foolish to pass on the opportunity. And then there's the fact that she was all but brainwashed by her mentor, and holding her strictly accountable for her actions may not be fair. I don't think she'll ever be allowed to join the ninja forces, but she'll likely be allowed to live in the village, under supervision."

"That sounds fair, but perhaps the greatest punishment of all for somebody who only sees herself as a ninja tool. I'll see you soon."

He left the room, giving a wave to the secretary on his way out. Sarutobi had expressed an intense dislike of people using the window, and Naruto had weaselled enough concessions out of the man today that he felt it only fair to humour him.

When he reached the outdoors he split his chakra eleven ways, forming ten clones who dashed off without needing instruction. He'd been taught some katas by Kakashi in a few styles: the proper Academy style (without the incorrect stances some of the instructors had taught him), the basics of the Strong Fist (although Kakashi said that he'd promised not to teach anybody anything more than the basics) and some of the Uchiha's Intercepting Fist. Naruto hadn't seen the logic in learning a style optimised for the Sharingan, but his sensei had clearly had the transplant plan under his mask since they'd left Wave.

Ten clones with one dispersing every half hour would accumulate around six solid weeks of experience, which should be enough for Naruto's plan to seek advanced instruction elsewhere. Kakashi had warned him that this path would force him to redefine the meaning of hard work, but Naruto welcomed the challenge. Anything to give him the strength to protect.

With his chakra levels somewhat depleted, he went back inside and travelled straight to the clinic. Tenshu was sorting the equipment for disposal and cleaning, whilst keeping an eye on the comatose form of Sakura.

"Ah, Uzumaki-san, here to see your teammate? I'm afraid she isn't quite as resistant to chemical interference as you are; she's probably going to be out cold for a few more minutes. While you wait, would you mind if I had a look at your eye?"

"Do you think I'll be able to see properly yet?"

"Probably. Your healing rate is a blessing, and you should have accepted the transplant already."

The doctor gestured to a chart on the wall.

"Could you please close your right eye and read the chart?"

"Sure. A, O, W…"

Naruto read every letter on the chart, even the ones that forced Tenshu to walk up close and double-check.

"Miraculous, Uzumaki-san. From Uchiha-san's records it would appear that he was only able to read halfway down the chart. Although activating the Sharingan has been known to increase visual focus, this is never seen in the two-tomoe stage, and only rarely with three. Even then, the vision increase is mostly about speed of perception rather than focus. If I may theorise, it appears that your body recognised something that could be beneficial to it and healed it to the same level of visual clarity that your old eye enjoyed."

The pinkette behind them stirred, and the two were interrupted.

"I'll let the two of you speak privately. Please let me know when you're finished."

The medic left the room and Naruto rushed to Sakura's side.

"Hey sleepy. What kept you?"

Sakura's one visible eye narrowed and she feebly moved an arm.

"Damn, I'd hit you if I weren't so weak. Why are you so lively after the operation? And goodness, you're bright."

"Coming from the top scorer in the Academy I'll take that as a compliment."

"Not smarts, you idiot. Your chakra. It's… huge. But pleasant."

"Those control exercises sensei made us do have calmed it down some. And you know I have loads of chakra, how else do you think I keep using shadow clones? Anyway, seems your eye's working."

"Yes, and right after waking up from the operation. Blurry right now, but still. Medic-nins are incredible. I wonder how long it takes to get to that stage…"

"All you need to start is excellent chakra control, Sakura, something we both know you have. If you want to learn and teach me afterwards, I'd be happy to do the same for you with something else."

"Why don't you do it yourself, you lazy bum?"

"I try not to go to the hospital unless I really need to. I'm sure you've noticed how most people don't like me… I doubt many would want to teach me, or let me operate on them."

Sakura's head slumped as she realised she'd brought up some bad memories.

"Well those people are idiots! You're too slow to have any ill intentions; it'd take too much brainpower for you to be evil. If anybody tries to get at you like that again, send them my way and I'll teach them a lesson!"

Naruto was unsure how to take the mixed compliment, so he decided to go with 'thanks'.

"Now that you're better, I'm going to get out of your hair and let you go home. Sensei has given us the week off, and you need to rest your eye. I'm going to see Haku now."

"Her? What do you want with her?"

"I don't know, I guess I feel sorry for her. I know she killed Sasuke, but she had plenty of opportunities to kill me and she just tried to knock me out. I think it was an accident, but she thought Sasuke was at my level when she tried to hit him and he just moved too fast."

"Well you're right that Sasuke-kun was far above your level," Sakura conceded, causing Naruto to face-fault. "But I don't feel sorry for her. She took away our teammate. She deserves to burn."

"And it must be eating her up inside. Not to mention that her reason for living died as well. Now she has nothing to live for, must think she's going to be executed, and who cares? I'm not saying I've forgiven her, but she at least deserves a chance to explain herself."

Sakura nodded struggling to keep her eyes open.

"It's getting late. You should ask Tenshu-san whether you need to go home or to the hospital for the night. I'll be off now, Sakura-chan."

"See you soon Naruto-kun…"

The jinchūriki left his teammate and nodded to Tenshu as he left. The walk from the Hokage's tower to Torture & Interrogation was very short and he made it in a few minutes. He walked through the entrance and past the front desk; however was meant to man it having left it abandoned. He wandered around until a kunai made its way out of the darkness at the end of the corridor and came flying towards his face.

The knife would have merely left a shallow cut along his cheek, but with his new and enhanced perceptions it was a simple thing to tilt his head to the side and snatch the weapon out of the air.

"You're coming dangerously close to the holding cells, brat," came a threatening voice from afar. "Maybe you should be on your way."

"The Hokage said that I could visit one of the prisoners here. He's probably sent word."

A figure burst out of the gloom and came to a rest next to him, grinning like a madwoman.

"Then why didn't you say so?" she chirped, cheerfully snatching her kunai out of his hand. "Name's Anko, you must be red-eyed brat number one. Feel lucky I saw you first, otherwise you'd be brat number two. Where is the other one?"

"Still recovering. May I ask how you know?"

"Oh, the entire village is buzzing about those eyes. Hoshi really can't keep his yap shut about anything. The only reason he's so high up in the hospital is that barely anyone needs eye surgery. The Hyūga all have their own doctors, so he doesn't really do much. Good for the occasional snippet of gossip though, or for threatening."

"I'm fine with you calling me red-eyes, but could you please hold off on Sakura? She might not take it as well as I do."

"Well, that depends on what you can offer me."

"Um, what do you want?"

"Geez kid, your negotiating sucks. You could've at least given me a lowball offer. I'd've argued you up, but it's the principle of the thing. You need to wise up before you get eaten out there."

"Well how about this. You like criticising people and being sadistic. How about you train me?"

Anko frowned and dug her fingers into his shoulder. Hard.

"I'm really not seeing how you're doing me a favour there."

"You get to throw pointy things at me and mess with my mind. I get to learn how to dodge pointy things and resist psychological torture. If you did that to another Konoha shinobi without their consent you'd be court marshalled on assault charges."

"Huh, you have a tongue in your mouth after all. We'll examine that later," she said, with a leer. She loosened her grip around his shoulder. "You're on, brat. Here, six in the morning, before I have to go to work. Then you'll watch me work my magic until four, and I'll beast you some more. You'll learn something and I'll leave your girlfriend alone. Deal. Now, we're here."

She stopped outside a metal door and channelled chakra into a seal.

"No touching, that's my job. That's just about the only rule."

The door creaked open and she shoved him in with a palm strike. As Naruto fell to the floor the door was slammed behind him. The room wasn't too small, but it was dark and impersonal.

"Naruto?"

Haku stood from the small cot in the corner and walked over to him.

"It's really you?"

Naruto let the kunoichi help him up and smiled at her.

"Of course it's me. Why wouldn't it be?"

"It could be a genjutsu designed to make me crack. It could be me hallucinating from dehydration. It could be your sensei under henge here to kill me…"

"Well it's not. Just me, Naruto. How're you doing?"

"But… why are you here? I thought you'd hate me, or at least not want to see me."

Naruto sighed and paced the room.

"My feelings towards you are difficult, but that didn't mean I shouldn't try and see you. You're one of the first people outside my team that I've truly connected with, but you also killed my teammate. But I don't believe you meant to, which doesn't affect the consequence, but maybe it makes it better, somehow. And then there's the fact that you were following the orders of a man who raised you and you worshipped. I'm not sure if I could even hold you fully responsible. In any event, I don't think you need punishing any more. You lost your precious person, as did I."

Haku's eyes started to water and she sat back down on the cot. Naruto followed, sitting next to her, and waited to let her speak.

"I know I just said I was his tool, but that was only because that's what he told me. But secretly, I imagined that he was my father. He was never too sentimental or loving, but he cared for me in his own way. And that's how I loved him - like an imperfect father, who doesn't quite know how to express his love. And I was too weak to save him, so no matter what I was to him, I failed him as both a tool and as a daughter. I don't know what the village is going to do to me for killing the Uchiha, but I find myself not caring. Maybe they'll end my suffering, maybe they'll prolong it. I'll happily accept them ending it, and I'll deserve it if they prolong it."

"Killing Sasuke, that was an accident, right?"

She nodded.

"He moved far faster than I thought he could. Suddenly he became able to react nearly twice as fast."

"That was him activating his Sharingan. So good. I'm glad it was an accident, at least. Haku, do you know what my reason for living was?"

The ice wielder shook her head.

"I wanted to become Hokage so that everyone would respect me and I could protect everyone - all my precious people. And I couldn't protect even one of my teammates. What kind of Hokage would I be? Are you seeing any similarities here? The only difference is, I know that Sasuke's will lives on."

Naruto shifted slightly and his eyes came into view. Haku had stopped looking at her lap as he talked and started to watch him. She caught sight of his mismatched eyes and gasped.

"His eye!"

"That's right. Each of us took one of Sasuke's eyes, just like we took his will. He had a goal to achieve and because we couldn't protect him, he'll never be able to achieve that goal. But that doesn't mean it will never happen. That means that the responsibility for making it happen now falls on us. Me, and Sakura, and you, Haku."

The kunoichi continued to look at him in surprise, tears still flowing slightly.

"You played a large part in this, and the responsibility falls on you too. Not just for carrying out Sasuke's will, but Zabuza's too. He had an ambition, right? A reason that he fought? He wasn't just some bloodthirsty monster, no matter what the bingo books say."

"To stop Yagura… to end the bloodline purges…"

"You see? Neither of us could protect our precious people. That means that we're responsible for making sure that their ambitions are achieved. We need to become stronger and work to make their memories proud. I know you feel like you don't have a reason for living anymore, but that's not true. You just have to live independently of Zabuza now, to achieve his goals. It's hard and it's scary, but if he was really precious to you, you'll live for his sake."

Haku flung her arms around the blond, finally sobbing freely, as he looked around uncomfortably, remembering Anko's warning. Hearing no objectors, he wrapped his arms around her and let her cry.

"Not everyone is going to forgive you as easily, and people are going to be angry. Please be patient with them. If we're going to work together to achieve Sasuke's ambition, then we'll need to be there for each other. And I'll be here for you."

The two talked in quiet voices for the rest of the visiting period, before Anko turned up and booted him out.

"I said no touching, but I guess there's no need to tell the Hokage. I'll just have to be twice as harsh tomorrow," she said, with an evil grin marring her features. "Try not to die."

Naruto trudged back to his apartment, ready for a week of sadistic torture. His clones were dispelling and adding functional knowledge of taijutsu forms to his repertoire as he walked. He could even feel his gait becoming more graceful as he gained a more intimate knowledge of his body and balance. Just as he was turning off the main road and into the residential district-

"Naruto-baka! Wait up!"

Naruto winced at the brash voice, knowing who was coming. He turned around with hands raised, trying to calm her down.

"Hey Ino, what can I-?

"Never mind you, where is Sasuke? My dad said I wouldn't want to hear it but he had to wait for the Hokage's say-so before the general population could know. Is he hurt? Worse - did he start dating Sakura?"

Naruto considered his response as he noted her teammates catching up. Clearly the other two teams had been socialising, as Hinata, Shino and Kiba were close behind Ino's teammates. Three of them immediately took stock of the facts and made the correct conclusions. Shikamaru and Shino were observant enough to see his mismatched eyes, and logical enough to extrapolate from that. Hinata was observant enough, at least when it came to Naruto, and smart enough to jump to a conclusion.

"Geez Ino, you're so troublesome. Clearly Sasuke was hurt, the only question is, how bad?"

"Hey everyone. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, and I don't have any fancy words prepared for you. So, yes. Sasuke was hurt on our last mission. In fact, he was killed in action." He waited for the gasps to subside, the only person who hadn't gasped having been Ino. "We completed the mission and came back. The Hokage gave us the opportunity to have a reminder of Sasuke, and carry on his will."

"So Sakura has the other eye?" Shikamaru asked. "I'm sorry to hear that. Sasuke could be difficult, but he was quiet. He wasn't that troublesome at all."

"Yeah, she's taking longer to recover. And she took the death harder as well. Ino, I know you were rivals, but you were friends once too, and I think the two of you might really need each other right now."

The blonde was roused from her stupor and nodded dumbly at Naruto, before wandering off in the direction of Sakura's home.

"Wow," said Chōji. "She didn't hit anyone. It must be bad."

"Sakura will be better for her than us," Shikamaru added. "She needs to talk to another woman. Men aren't useful in situations like this."

"Hey!" said Kiba. "I'd be great at counselling Ino! Shino too, right?"

"The two of them share a closer bond with each other than with any of us. It would be logical to conclude that they are best suited to comfort one another."

"Pah, everyone's a critic. I'm right, aren't I Akamaru?"

The puppy gave a noncommittal bark and flattened itself further into Kiba's hair.

"Fine, fine. But still, that's rough, man. Let me know if you need to talk."

"Thanks everyone, but I really need to sleep first. It's been an emotional day, and I have training from hell tomorrow to look forward to."

He started to set off, but was interrupted by Hinata.

"N-n-naruto-kun?"

"Yes Hinata-chan?"

The timid Hyūga nearly swooned at the affectionate term and was overcome by a blush.

"N-never mind. See you soon." she squeaked.

Naruto waved and finally left, shaking his head over his friends' antics.

* * *

"Rise 'n' shine, pinkeye! I got bored so we're playing early!"

Naruto woke up to realise that he couldn't move, not even to open his eyes. He tried to tense his muscles to escape, but there was no give at all.

"That's a paralysis seal, brat. Thought I'd introduce you to all the toys in an interrogator's arsenal. You can't move an inch, but you still feel just fine. But never mind, the seal will be wearing off in three, two, one…"

Suddenly he could move, and he tried to make a break for it, only to find that he was still restrained. The ropes seemed… cool. And moving.

"Tricks within tricks to make the perps lose their minds before they spill their guts. Give an avenue of escape that you've prepared for them yourself. You taking notes?"

Naruto opened his eyes to see Mitarashi Anko leering above him as he was bound fully by a mass of snakes.

"Gah!" he started, frantically shooting off wind chakra in spurts along his body. It must have done something, because the snakes disappeared in a puff of smoke and Anko started to pout.

"Aww, I didn't realise you were so good with nature transformation. Otherwise I'd have chosen something else. My snake summons are going to be bitching at me for weeks now; thanks a lot. Anyway, rise and shine, time to party."

"Are you at least going to leave the room while I get dressed?"

"Why do you think I'd do that? And whoever do you think I'm letting you get dressed? Your pyjamas are just so cute. I want to see you bleed in them."

When the purple-haired woman started playing with a kunai far too nonchalantly for his liking, Naruto made a hasty escape through the window and out along the rooftops.

"Nice try brat, but this isn't the last you've seen of Mitarashi Anko!" she yelled. "Meet me at training ground 44; I'll see you in a few minutes!"

Against his better judgement, Naruto made his way to training ground 44, easily scaling the fence and looking for an open clearing to wait in. The training ground was a thick forest, with the canopy concealing nearly all of the sunlight. Naruto was naturally able to see quite well in the dark, so he was able to navigate easily, but he could imagine even walking around being a challenge for other genin.

In an instant, the 'feel' of the forest changed. It took Naruto a second to realise that the sounds of animal life had stopped and his danger sense kicked in. With a chakra-assisted leap to the side, he avoided the crashing impetus of a feline paw by little more than a foot. A savage, but regal-looking, tiger was crouched in the position he'd just vacated, with its head turned to glare at him. It slowly turned on the spot and stared him down, waiting for the right moment to pounce.

The blond turned serious nearly instantly, thoughts of light-heartedly finding a clearing and waiting for Anko evaporating. He channeled chakra to his feet and lifted himself off the ground slightly, using the chakra-skating technique to slowly move backwards and make a retreat. The tiger seemed to notice but allow his gradual escape, until Naruto's danger sense screamed at him again and he made another dive. It was just in time, as a gigantic spider landed on the ground, chittering in frustration. It was about two arm-lengths in size and had the telltale glint of poison on its mandibles. Before Naruto could recover, the tiger roared into action and pounced on the tiger, smashing its carapace with both paws and leaving the arachnid a crushed mess. The victorious tiger turned to Naruto, but before it could make any action the area was washed with killing intent.

Zabuza and Kakashi's face-off had been scarier in terms of KI, so Naruto managed to control himself with only a few shivers. The tiger, unaccustomed to the threatening aura, bolted.

"There's your first lesson of the Forest of Death, brat," Anko commented as she made a graceful landing next to the squashed spider carcass. She picked her teeth with a used dango stick as she talked. "Nature is brutal, and it doesn't give a shit about you. If you aren't a predator, you're prey or a parasite. You need to work out which one of the three you are."

The spider, seemingly not completely dead, made a last-ditch effort at finding prey and lunged towards the special jōnin. Without a pause, she flung her dango stick straight through one of its many eyes and halted its jump. The spider fell back, legs crunching together disturbingly as it fell on its back, dead.

"Others will be coming to feed now. I'll take you to one of my favourite training areas. Just watch out for more predators."

The purple-haired kunoichi took to the trees and Naruto followed her for about a kilometre to a clearing with a forked river.

"I like it here. Don't go too close to the water though, the fish are a bit vicious too. So, I got in touch with your one-eyed sensei after you were done 'comforting' the ice princess. He's in disgrace at the moment and the Hokage's sent him out on some simple scouting missions for a few weeks while the storm blows over. I'll be overseeing your training and the pinky's when she recovers. So for this week at least, you're all mine."

Naruto squawked indignantly at Anko's mention of Haku, but reigned himself in.

"I've got a general idea of your abilities from your sensei. He told me pretty much everything. Did you know I went on a date with him once? So no point hiding anything from me because I already know it. He was putty in my hands."

"Your date, was he late for it?"

Anko scowled, her threatening tirade interrupted.

"Yes, as a matter of fact he was late. For our first and last date," she muttered. "So anyway, I hear you're proficient in the Academy style, some Strong Fist and some Intercepting Fist. How good would you rate your taijutsu?"

"Erm, good for a genin?"

"Oh, you see, there's a world of difference between 'good' and 'good for a genin'. It's my job to see which one you are and make sure you end up halfway decent. So put your guard up."

Naruto slipped into the Gōken guard stance and waited for the snake mistress to make a move. She blurred forwards and sent a roundhouse jab into the side of his left arm, completely ignoring the raised fist and forearm that he'd been using to block. Despite trying to defend, her limb blurred with speed and all he could do was move slightly to the side. The attack was laced with chakra and numbed the appendage, leaving it dangling by his side.

"I've been told you heal fast. Well that's good, because my method of training may spill a bit of blood. Snake style is different to the Strong Fist and anything else you've been taught so far. You didn't even see the strike coming until it was nearly complete, did you?"

The blond shook his head, confused and abashed.

"Despite that pretty new red eye you have. That's because Snake style uses continuous motion and alternating angles of attack. I turned my arm angle enough times that the Sharingan predicted multiple outcomes and saw a blur instead of the proper angle of attack. Kakashi talked me through the stages of Sharingan development. Seeing as you got the eye with two tomoe, you're better able to predict future movement, but not nearly good enough to counteract Snake style. With three tomoe you'd do better, but I'd be able to strike faster and keep you confused. That's why your sensei bribed me to teach you Snake style. He said you want to kill the last Uchiha?"

"Yes. That was Sasuke's goal, so it has become mine in his stead."

"Then at least we share something in common - we both want to kill an S-ranked Konoha missing-nin. Now listen up. The viper is the predator that waits in the long grass, patiently waiting for the right moment to strike. It bides its time, coils and tenses itself, and strikes only once with lightning speed and accuracy. Its fangs aren't huge, so it targets vital areas that will spread its poison the fastest - neck, face, groin… It sends the poison into the enemy's body and then hangs back, waiting for the enemy's struggles to hasten their demise. Then it moves back in to eat.

The boa is different, this one waits in the trees for its victim to pass beneath before dropping down and coiling around it. By the time the victim realises the boa is there, it is trapped, and the boa squeezes the life out of it.

The rattlesnake is mellower in comparison, warning off potential threats and blending into the surroundings rather than initiating combat. It has weak venom, so if it does strike it will do so quickly in an incapacitating area and then flee.

What this means is that each type of snake has a corresponding style within the larger Snake style.

Viper style is much like the viper, mainly focusing on concealment and quick, fatal, strikes. You won't telegraph your moves at all, but strike quickly with chakra-reinforced fingers at blood vessels, organs and chakra points, and anything else that will kill quickly. If you can't kill in one strike, you shouldn't be using viper style. Then you retreat until the enemy has bled out. Viper style also concentrates hugely on defence; you need to create a complete defence until you are ready to make your one strike.

Boa style focuses on strong and persistent assault. You use chakra-reinforced grabs at the enemy to crush bones and tear out flesh. It's definitely the bloodiest style, and the tradeoff is that it isn't as concerned with defence. You might have to take a hit in order to make an attack, but it is the best suited for fighting large numbers of enemies at once, when you don't have the time to defend and wait for the one perfect strike.

Rattlesnake style focuses on threat, deception, and concealment. By using killing intent and genjutsu, you can deter enemies rather than fighting them. If you still have to fight them, you can attack while they're shitting their pants from your KI, or fighting each other from your genjutsu. You can then take them down with crippling shots to limbs or senses and hide nearby, waiting for another move. Or you can use this style to whittle down a stronger opponent with hit-and-run tactics, or make a fast escape. As you may be able to tell, this is the style I just used on you and it is by far my favourite.

When you're skilled enough you can blend the styles or mix and match them as needed. I wouldn't worry about that though. Not for a few decades. What I need you to do now is finger-strengthening exercises while I take a clone away and teach it the starting poses for viper style. I'll start you off with that because you don't have the genjutsu knowledge or KI control for rattlesnake style and boa style is too similar to Gōken - I don't want you mixing the styles. We'll run you through the rest of the styles as you get better."

A clone of Anko directed him to a tree where he was instructed to hang from a branch using chakra and his fingertips before doing finger pushups, trying to crush the trunks of smaller trees, and other strengthening exercises. His clone was led off to learn the katas and he slaved on under the grinning gaze of his harsh taskmaster.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have all that much to say. I like to give backstory and theory to styles and techniques. Oh and let me know if there are any spelling mistakes. This is all first draft and I don't have a beta. But do I need one? The story thickens...  
> I didn't put any warning tags because it's mainly fantasy violence - I don't intend to have much gore. If fantasy violence (i.e. blood very rarely mentioned) needs a tag then let me know.


	3. Snakes and Dogs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naruto and Sakura learn to use their gifts. Naruto experiences some bombshells from an unexpected source.

**Two Weeks Later**

BOOM

"You think you can move like a snake? First you have to think like a snake. Now die!"

CRASH

"Hiding behind a tree won't work. I can smell you, pinky!"

SLICE

"Oh, you've moved? More's the pity."

CLANG

Anko drew a kunai and crossed blades with Sakura, who had leapt from a tree, intent on stabbing the snake summoner with her knife. The pinkette moved to lift up her slanted headband, but Anko weaved around her blade and bashed her to the ground.

"Impressive attempt. And you didn't even react to my taunting; so there's improvement there. But I do  _not_ want to see you using that pink eye of yours. You barely have the chakra to survive a minute of it and I don't want to be responsible if you die of chakra exhaustion. If you die of poisoning, however... Oh, at least you're following the rest of my teaching to the letter. That other idiot thinks he knows better."

"I can hear you, you know!"

"Why do you think I'm saying it?"

Naruto scowled, standing from his position off to the side and walking over to the two kunoichi.

"I don't care what you say, I'm nearly there. Look at my leaf!"

He thrust a healthy green leaf into Anko's face, causing her to slap it away on reflex and let it flutter into a nearby pile of leaves.

"No! How am I meant to train now? But you saw it though, right? The leaf? It crumpled!"

"It was a leaf. A normal sized leaf."

"Aha - that's where you're wrong. It began as a larger-than-average leaf that I crumpled. I made it slightly smaller. I'm nearly there!"

Sakura, having been excused from the conversation, decided to speak up.

"Naru-to! What the hell are you trying to do?"

"The brat thinks that elemental affinities are for sissies. So he's trying to learn to use all five elements. That was his lightning training in progress."

"I managed to stop a leaf from burning! And I made another go withered and flaky. Granted, I'm not all the way there but-"

"You didn't put your leaf anywhere near the candle flame!" Anko interrupted. "And the other leaf withered because you kept it for a week and it dried out!"

"Everyone's a critic…" the blond mumbled.

"Yes, because you're an idiot! You already have two nature affinities, and they're two of the rarer and more versatile elements for this country. So why are you being so greedy?"

"Jiji's book says that anyone can learn techniques from any element and master them if they have the time and skill. I'm just taking it slowly because no-one will teach me exercises for fire, earth or lightning."

"That's because you're a genin, and no right-minded jōnin would teach you anything about nature transformation right now."

"Kakashi-sensei taught me! And he'd have taught Sakura if she wasn't moping on the way back."

"I wasn't moping; I was upset!" Sakura argued. "And I had every reason to mope."

"Moping aside," Anko said. "Kakashi  _wasn't_  in his right mind. That's why he was sent away. Hopefully he won't be away with the fairies anymore when he returns."

"Was that a gay joke at my expense, Anko-san?" asked a familiar voice. "I'll have you know that Gai is eccentric, but he's in no way homosexual. And you know better than anyone that I'm as straight as they come."

"Stop wiggling your eyebrows, Kakashi, it was one drink, that you were  _late for_ , and it ended up in your face. And 'away with the fairies' is a normal, non-sexuality-related phrase. Stop foisting your homophobia onto me."

"Um, oka-"

"Sensei!" Naruto shouted. "Look at my leaf!"

The cyclops took the proffered leaf.

"Um, Naruto, this is a regular leaf. I heard Anko had trained you these past few weeks, but she didn't beat you hard enough to give you amnesia, did she? You could cut through a leaf the day after we left Wave."

"Oh, er, sorry. This is the wrong leaf." Naruto took it back and rubbed his head, laughing nervously. "Still, good to see you back. Sakura was getting worried."

"I was- Ugh. Naruto's been a pain, sensei. You need to teach him something, fast. Anko's restricted herself to taijutsu and he's been driving us  _crazy_ because of it."

Kakashi eye-smiled and ruffled Sakura's hair.

"Well then there's good news for you. I'm no longer in disgrace, not entirely, and the Hokage has approved me taking you on a training trip. The council were angry at him for giving you Sasuke's eyes without putting it past them, but now they're transplanted they don't want you going out on missions until you're ready to defend yourselves. That means me taking you training, somewhere far away from A-rank missing-nins or anything like that."

"But where could that be? Every nation has deserters," Sakura chimed.

"Not here, I can assure you." Kakashi rolled up his sleeve, bit his thumb, and rubbed some of the blood along a tattoo. "I need you to sign this."

A large scroll, about forearm-length, appeared in a puff of smoke, and Kakashi laid it out on the grass.

"Ooh-hoo, you're in for a treat, kiddies," Anko smirked.

"This is the Hatake family summoning contract. You've seen my nin-dogs before - well, now we're going to stay with them for a while."

Anko raised an eyebrow.

"Well nobody'll think to look there, I'll give you that."

Their sensei rolled out the scroll until they could see blank lines. Hatake Kakashi's name was proudly displayed there, with Hatake Sakumo's faded-out signature further up, and other faded names stretching even further.

"You need to cut a finger and sign here. This will allow you to summon dogs and, more importantly, be reverse-summoned by them."

"Why would we-" Sakura started. "Oh, I see. Now that makes sense."

"What makes sense?" Naruto asked. "Where would we go?"

"Summons don't live in this dimension, Naruto," Sakura explained. "It's somewhere else, with the different countries split by the creatures that live there rather than the elements. The only known way to get there is by the summoning technique in conjunction with a summoning contract, so very few people would be able to get there."

"But I'm one of 'em!" Anko said. "So stay sharp, 'cause Auntie Anko might pop in to see how you're doing at some point."

"Oh god no!" Naruto shouted."Anything but that!"

As Anko chased Naruto around, Sakura calmly made a cut on her forefinger and wrote her name on the contract. A glow of chakra confirmed the signature and Kakashi called over to Anko. She dragged over a trussed-up Naruto, who was glowering at the snakes binding him.

"You know I can escape," he taunted.

"Yesssss, but we got our revennnge, didn'ttt we?" one of the snakes hissed in reply.

Paling slightly, the jinchūriki bit his finger and started to write his name. Partway through the 'k' of 'Uzumaki', his finger healed and he had to bite down again.

"Excellent," Kakashi said. "Now we can begin. Summoning Technique!"

The jōnin slammed his hand to the ground and summoned a single nin-dog. Pakkun emerged from the smoke and greeted them with a raised paw.

"Yo."

"Pakkun, the kids have signed the contract. Can you head back and get the alpha to summon us to the forest?"

"Hai." The summon disappeared as quickly as he'd arrived.

"Now you won't have experienced this before," Kakashi said. "And it may feel a little disorienting. Just rem-"

He was interrupted by the fact that he'd burst into smoke, shortly followed by the two genin.

Naruto felt a gently-increasing pressure on all sides and could see a swirling vacuum of smoke with the sensation of motion. After less than a second, the pressure disappeared, and he was standing under the shade of a canopy in a forest with towering trees.

"Welcome, pups," came a growling voice from the side. Two fallen trees were leaning together to create a shadowed enclosure and a large dog slowly padded over to them. "I am Inuka, alpha of the dog pack. You may have signed the summoning scroll, but you must first face my test if you wish to be a fully-fledged dog summoner. Your sensei never passed this test, which is why he can only summon the one smaller nin-dog pack."

The dog had white fur and looked more like a wolf than a dog. It reached higher than Kakashi and prowled with grace, as though not a single movement was wasted.

"You!" It growled, lashing out a paw at Sakura and only stopping before he would've struck her in the face. She remained motionless, barely reacting to the threat. "You… may have what it takes. You have bravery. But do you have lo-"

The alpha was interrupted when Sakura, curious, felt the padding of the paw still hovering near her face.

"So soft…" she murmured.

The intimidating dog fell to his haunches, goofy grin on his face, and looked to the side coyly.

"Well, I do put a lot of effort into keeping them soft… Don't think this means I like you! But still, I suppose I'll let the two of you summon us without the test. Because you're… obviously ninja of good taste."

Kakashi facefaulted. He'd tried in vain to be able to summon the larger dogs several times along the years, but had failed their stringent tests every time. Apparently they held the fact that he'd once tried to prioritise the mission over the health of his teammates as the worst crime possible, and still didn't think he'd been in penance for long enough. The nin-dogs were fanatical about pack loyalty, something he'd only started to understand as he grew older.

"So what are we going to do here, sensei?" Naruto asked.

"We're going to be training as a team, of course," Kakashi said, smiling behind his mask.

"But how can we be a team with just the three of us? Doesn't Konoha have to have four-man cells for genin teams?" Sakura asked.

"Ma, we'll sort that out. And, for now, I'm going to be teaching you about the Sharingan. In our first months together I didn't teach you directly. I put you through team bonding exercises, because they were the fastest way to improve your combat efficiency and village loyalty. I'm sorry if that made you feel like I was ignoring you." The jōnin glanced at Naruto. "But I've been cataloguing your skills and I've made a training plan.

Sakura. You have excellent chakra control. You have already demonstrated the ability to channel chakra through your limbs to enhance punches. Unfortunately you've so far only used that skill unconsciously to hit Naruto."

The pinkette sent an apologetic look to Naruto.

"As such I will be training you first in genjutsu and healing techniques to exploit your control. As we work we will increase your chakra reserves to allow you better and more sustained use of the Sharingan."

The girl nodded, idly fingering the forehead protector that was slanted over her eye, much like her sensei.

"Naruto. You have changed remarkably since our mission in Wave. I must commend you. Previously your chakra control was awful, although we know that wasn't your fault, your taijutsu sloppy, ninjutsu wasteful, genjutsu non-existent. You were a brawler and a front line tank, hardly an ideal ninja role. But you've improved across the board. Both of you, in fact, flourished under Mitarashi-san's tutelage. So Naruto, I will focus on developing your ninjutsu skills and introducing you to fūinjutsu. You in particular will want to understand this art."

Naruto nodded resolutely, reflexively glancing down to his stomach. Sakura looked interested at the interplay between the two, but was unable to grasp its significance.

"In addition, I will tell you the known history of the Sharingan, and how it develops over time.

There are three tomoe to the average Sharingan, and they are unlocked when their carrier is exposed to great stress. Typically this happens in battle when a ninja is put in a life-or-death situation. Blood and adrenaline flood the eyes and trigger a response from the genetic code; nearly instantaneous evolution. But that isn't the final stage. There is a further level to the Sharingan. The Mangekyo Sharingan. The key to unlocking it is guilt... The grief of being responsible for the death of somebody close to you. It has to be fresh and raw for the evolution to happen. That was one of the factors argued in favour of giving you those eyes; your grief is still strong and I believe you will develop the Mangekyo. These eyes are even more dangerous than ever - they can manipulate the very nature of reality."

"But sensei," Naruto asked. "Doesn't that seem a little overpowered? They're already a scarily dangerous tool, but they can change reality? Why are they mostly gone, in that case?"

"Unlocking the Mangekyo Sharingan was a secret, even to many in the clan. Because the Uchiha were an insular people, partly due to the suspicions of the Second Hokage, the elders didn't want their clansmen killing each other for power. It does seem overpowered. It is. But using the Mangekyo Sharingan degrades the eye. It simply requires too much blood and chakra to flow through the eyes, eventually causing blindness."

"Do you have the Mangekyo Sharingan, sensei?"

The cyclopean jōnin looked off into the distance before replying.

"Yes, I do. And that's one of the reasons I'm uniquely qualified to teach you about it.

Now Sakura, uncover your eye. I'm going to perform a jutsu and you're going to watch."

Sakura flipped up her headband, with Naruto not needing to bother. Kakashi lazily tossed a kunai at a tree before flipping through some handseals.

"Kunai shadow clone technique!"

The kunai became dozens and peppered the tree. After a few seconds the copies disappeared, leaving the original lodged in the tree, with stab marks arranged around it.

"Now I'm not comfortable with you using the regular shadow clone technique, Sakura, because you don't have enough chakra for it. But the extent of this technique is defined by the amount of chakra you choose to put in. Now, I want to see both of you try the technique with the same amount of chakra I did."

Both genin hopped to their feet, Sakura covering her eye again. They repeated the technique and replicated the number of flying kunai exactly.

As the shadow cloned kunai disappeared, Kakashi observed his students.

"Now, did you notice any drawbacks?"

"I had to concentrate to remember the handseals," Naruto said. "I ran through them automatically, so I had to watch my hands to remember the handseals. I did that, so now I know a bit more about how it works, but if I hadn't then I wouldn't know how to adapt the technique for different circumstances."

"That's right, Naruto. Sakura?"

"I... I knew the handseals. And I knew how it worked."

Kakashi's eye widened.

"Do you know how that is? That could be a terribly effective skill if it can be replicated."

Sakura shook her head nervously, the evasiveness not lost on Kakashi. Sakura wasn't going to tell him that Inner Sakura had helpfully told her all about the technique she'd just seen, just like she normally did with any information Sakura couldn't consciously remember.

"So, barring Sakura's surprising talent, it seems that was a success. But it is always advisable to train with techniques before trying to use them again in battle - you'll learn better how and when to use them. Now, as for handseals-"

"Doesn't the Sharingan only work on techniques when the other ninja uses the full sequence of handseals? I read that, with training, you can cut down on the amount of handseals needed, and sometimes not have to use them at all," Naruto said.

"That's true, Naruto, but as the Sharingan progresses to later stages, it becomes better able to puzzle out the gaps between handseals. Of course, when you then reproduce the technique you have to use the full sequence, which just makes training the more useful. Where did you read that? I wasn't aware you were much interested in books."

"Yeah, Naruto," Sakura added. "I thought you were more into physical training."

"I read it in a book that jiji gave to me. He said it was how he trained when he was a genin."

"Sarutobi-sama's training guide? Isn't that a little advanced for... No, he was right to give it to you. He must have a great deal of faith in you. Many ninja have read that book but few have the time to actually take those words into practice. Have you read the part on elemental combination jutsu?"

"Yes, and I didn't understand it. How can you have two types of elemental chakra in your tenketsu at any one time, on top of normal chakra?"

"The Hokage didn't write that down in the book, and for good reason. It was one of his prized chakra manipulation techniques; one of the reasons a shinobi with no bloodline could go toe to toe with the lava or dust release shinobi of Iwa. But Sarutobi taught his students, Jiraiya taught Minato-sensei, and he taught me. He folds his chakra back on itself while in the tenketsu, increasing its density and leaving space for more chakra to occupy it. This can put immense strain on the chakra network and isn't something to be taken lightly. I was never very good at it. Naruto, you might as well try it due to the size of your tenketsu. Sakura, we'll work on other things before getting to that."

The two genin nodded.

"So what now, sensei?" Sakura asked.

Kakashi dangled a bell in front of his two students and smiled.

"You remember this, don't you?"

They groaned.

"But this time there's no trick to it. The person with the bell gets dinner, the other goes hungry. Start!"

* * *

After two months in the summons' dimension, Naruto and Sakura were completely different to the genin they had been before. Sparring for the bells every evening had taught them how to deal with high-speed enemies, and their ability to track movement with both eyes at the same time was back to normal. Despite whomever got the bell by evening, it had become a tradition for the two genin to share anyway, leading Kakashi to cave a little and make the evening meal extra large.

Just as soon as the two genin thought they'd become able to predict where Kakashi was going to move to, he would switch styles and annihilate them. He had a bewildering arsenal of taijutsu styles memorised and, consequentially, so did they now. Even had Kakashi just used one style, he could use his Sharingan to predict how they would predict his movements - that kind of feedback loop meant that the faster shinobi still won every time.

Naruto and Sakura had immediately got on well with the dog clan - Naruto's boisterous nature and Sakura's calm and complimentary manner had inured them to all of the dogs, not just the clan chief.

Sakura had befriended a feisty young pup called Taruko, while Naruto had decided he wanted a companion as well and had taken to bugging Taruko's sister Harumi, who seemed to want nothing to do with the hyperactive blond. The dynamic between the blond and Harumi reminded Sakura of her early relationship with Naruto, but Harumi preferred to run away from Naruto and hadn't yet bopped him on the head.

It was the afternoon and Naruto was trying to find Harumi.

"Ne, Harumi-chan, are you sure you don't want to be my personal summon? I'll give you plenty of ramen!"

"Ramen? How disgusting! Never!"

A bush rustled as the small dog involuntarily blurted out an insult to Naruto's favourite food.

"You don't like ramen? Then you've clearly never tried enough of it! Come here and I'll take you for some."

"Agh!"

The two chased each other around the boundaries of the forest for a few hours, Harumi eventually starting to enjoy herself when she turned the tables on Naruto.

He ran, laughing, and started to pump chakra through his body, accelerating madly. After around five minutes of sprinting at top speed, he stopped to see how his pursuer was doing.

"Harumi?"

He'd just left the forest, and he could now see mountains stretching off into the distance, with a canyon fed by a river not too far away.

She wouldn't have left the forest, so Naruto moved to go back.

"What do you think you're doing here, young man?"

Naruto looked around for the source of the voice, to no success.

"Down here!"

WHACK.

Something collided with his shin, causing the blond to jump back and look down.

A small purple toad with permed hair and a basket of mushrooms was glaring at him.

"Kids these days, always running around fast and never looking down. What's your name, boy?"

"Um, Uzumaki Naruto, ma'am."

The old toad hmmed to herself.

"Well, at least he can be trained," she muttered. "You need to come with me! Trespassing on Mount Myobuku is a serious offence. Are you a dog summoner?"

"H-Hai, I am, but I wandered here by accident. I didn't know this was toad territory."

"That may gain you some leniency, but the dogs clearly... mark their territory and, as a summoner, you should have been able to determine the limits. Either they haven't trained you effectively, or you're here in bad faith. Either way, our clans have a problem. Follow me."

The elder toad hopped down into the gorge, Naruto running down the cliff face as she jumped from outcrop to outcrop. When they landed, they followed the river deeper into the mountainous territory, following a valley's interlocking spurs until Naruto wasn't quite sure of his location. Eventually, the valley opened to a huge lake, surrounded by mountains and toad statues.

"This waterfall is the domain of the Elder Toad Sage," the brusque toad said. "He will see you in his own time. Wait here."

With that, she hopped off across the water, leaving Naruto alone at the side of a lake. The waterfall fed into a small pool of water, but as he looked closer it became apparent that what was flowing wasn't water - it was something darker and more viscous. He leant over to dip a finger in the strange substance, but the ground shook with a sudden tremor and Naruto fell in head-first.

"Gamahiro, what have you done with my sake?" a distant voice boomed, as the tremors abated, clearly as a very large toad hopped away.

As the tremors began to subside, Naruto realised that he could still feel the being's chakra as it moved away. The toad had a massive chakra presence, but

it flowed and eddied gently, like water or curling smoke. It was attuned to the environment around it, and Naruto moved on from feeling the toad's chakra to feeling the chakra that permeated the atmosphere. As he concentrated, he could feel the chakra start to flow into him, until-

"Damn fool child!"

A sticky tongue wrapped around his midriff and hurled him out of the pond. Naruto landed on his head but, strangely, was none the worse for it. He moved to stand up but his right leg flopped uselessly as he put weight on it.

"Argh! My leg!"

His leg had turned into some sort of frog leg, having elongated and thinned.

"Webbed toes!" he wailed.

"Oh, come here, fool child, it's not so bad," the stranger crooned.

WHACK

Naruto nursed his head, the only thing he could do after being struck in the head with a stick.

"Hey, what do y- oh, my leg!"

"Baka. Why were you in the toad oil fountain? You do know that's a sacred monument of Myobuku, don't you? And trying to draw in nature chakra at your age? Sheer idiocy."

"Was that what that feeling was?" Naruto asked.

The toad sighed.

"Yes, you just experienced sage mode, where you balance your chakra with nature and become one with it. Very briefly, you did. I'm glad Ma told me to keep an eye on you; you'd have been like them if you'd been in sage mode any longer."

He pointed at the toad statues circling the lake and frowned at the young boy.

"Each of those statues was a person once. If you lose focus when entering sage mode, the nature energy is unbalanced and you turn into stone. You humans also turn into toads when you try it. These statues are a grim reminder to take caution, and monuments to honour their bravery. You nearly joined their ranks, or would've if we hadn't decided to deliver your granite corpse back where you came from."

A rumble emerged from a nearby cavern.

"That is the Elder Toad Sage," the toad mumbled. "Be polite and answer his questions."

A pressure emerged from the cavern mouth and pressed down on both boy and toad, increasing as the Elder moved ever closer. Just as the pressure reached its peak, the Elder came into view.

"Ah, Pa, are you here to deliver the worms? I've finished all mine already."

"Ah, no, venerable Elder, I bring you this human. He trespassed on our land and Ma brought him here."

"Ah, Uzumaki Naruto," the sage grumbled. "It is nice to finally meet the Child of Prophesy."

Pa looked mortified and tried to settle the meeting.

"Well, this was nice, but I suppose I'll take you back to th-"

"Has Jiraiya brought you here? I always thought he'd bring his pupil's son here, but I didn't foresee it being this soon. Are you here for the Key?"

"What key? The Toad Sannin? And he trained my father?"

Pa groaned and slapped his head, finally losing his temper.

"It wasn't meant to work like this! You were meant to say something vague about him having great promise and then tell him to seek out Jiraiya-child. Why did you have to say all of that?"

"Oh, what was that?" the Sage asked. "I hear something in my cave. I'll be off now."

With that, the ancient elder hopped away, leaving a very confused Naruto with a very annoyed Pa.

"What was all that about? Should we be following him?"

"That was- no, no it's fine," Pa said. "We knew you would come here one day because of the burden you carry, but also because Jiraiya would take you on as his apprentice. You wandered here by chance and we thought we could speed up that process. The Elder Sage just put all that planning to ruins. Here's some advice - ninja need to understand subterfuge. Don't go blowing secrets like that future-addled geezer!"

The toad calmed down and collected himself.

"Okay, here's what you are going to do. When you return to Konoha you are going to find Jiraiya of the Sannin and tell him that Pa says you're ready. We'd summon him here now but he's probably off doing something delicate for his village. I'll see you again when he thinks you're ready to begin sage training."

"Wait, isn't there some sort of test like the dogs had to allow me back here?"

"Normally, yes, but we can't really afford not to have you as a summoner. Bunta might give you a token test but that's just because he's headstrong. Just go back to the dogs and finish your training. Nobody's angry with you; Ma just used that as a pretext to drag you here. I look forward to seeing you again."

Naruto set off on the winding path back to the forest before he remembered to ask.

"Wait, who was my father?"

Pa had already disappeared, leaving Naruto to trudge back alone, questions unanswered.

* * *

"So if I use a triangle rather than a circle, then I can-"

"No, stick to the circle. Do you remember what happened last time you tried a different shape?"

Naruto shrugged.

"It was an experiment. Shadow clones are low risk guinea pigs."

"Somebody else could have been caught in the blast!" Kakashi interjected. "Fuinjutsu is not a forgiving art, and you need to slow down before you put others at risk."

"Ma, sensei, have I not advanced enough to go beyond the baby stuff? Fuinjutsu isn't that difficult; you just need to remember a lot and pay close attention."

Kakashi grunted, peering at the boy.

"If it's so easy to remember, then talk me through the basics again."

Naruto groaned.

"Sealing is the art of storing and directing chakra for different effects. Ninja handseals are a limited way of replicating this process, but there's only so many different poses the human hands can go through; whereas the possibilities for written fuinjutsu are endless.

One major distinction made in the art is between inputs, processes and output. Inputs are usually chakra, ink, or chakra-infused substances like treated ink or blood. Processes are the internal mechanics of the seal, and are further divided into categories. The outputs are varied and depend wholly on the processes, but ninja usually work backwards from the output they want when they design a seal.

Processes can be divided into the main headings of chakra filtration, storage, expression, logistical and otherly.

Chakra filtering seals change chakra from one form to another - pure to elemental, demonic to human, yin to yang.

Storage seals use space-time folding to store objects as intangible chakra constructs.

Expression seals direct chakra into noticeable effects like explosions or smoke. If you've sealed something away, you need an expression seal in order to bring it back into reality again.

Logistical seals direct where and how the other types of seal will work. If you store a kunai in a seal on your wrist, logistical seals make sure the kunai appears in your hand and not embedded in your arm.

Otherly seals stretch the limits of human sealing knowledge. This contains advanced time-space work and contracts with summons races or other beings.

Many seals have parts from all types of seal to function. An expression seal to convert excess chakra into smoke is quite common, otherwise the seal would overload and could become dangerous. Logistical seals can also be used to determine how different seals react with each other.

Seals are written in kanji, but have to be structured using geometric shape principles or the chakra won't flow properly. The most stable shape is the circle, but it is also the least versatile. The fewer edges a shape has, the more difficult it is to use. Then there are advanced shapes such as seals forming other words that can in turn be used as seals, or spirals.

These shapes interact at a macro scale, and most seals are defined by the amount of shapes they have. The more there are, the more stable the seal. Some sealing masters have superstitions about certain numbers, like the Fourth Hokage, who only ever used even numbers..."

"Well that wasn't entirely superstition, Naruto," Kakashi interjected. "The Fourth always liked to build redundancies into his work, so he'd double the number he was already using. Your seal, for example, is eight trigrams. He would've only needed two trigrams to seal the Kyuubi - but he created four backups of his work to account for how corrosive the demon chakra is."

"Okay, well, do I have to say any more? You know that I get it, right?"

"I suppose. Now how is your work on channelling lightning going?"

"Not great. I'm doing fine with earth and fire, but lightning's escaping me for some reason. I can't get any further than the leaf crumpling exercise."

"Well that isn't unexpected. Lightning is between wind and water, your primary affinities, so you're having the hardest time with it. Many shinobi devote their lives to developing only a second element and fail, so don't beat yourself up about it. Hopefully that will be enough chakra for you to be able to use the five-element seal."

"Is it really that useful, sensei?"

"Of course it is. You inject five different types of chakra into an opponent's body and cause chakra arryhthmia. Unless they have all five affinities, and strongly, too, it will interrupt their chakra control and make them all but useless in battle. Now, concentrate on your calligraphy training while I go and check on Sakura."

Naruto held in a groan and Kakashi wandered off.

He walked away from the young jinchūrikki and along the banks of a river to find his female student. Naruto had been coming on dangerously fast. When he concentrated and stopped joking around, he was the spitting image of his father, in both looks and personality. After the incident with the toads, Kakashi had no doubts that Naruto would go far, particularly as he was apparently slated to become Jiraiya's apprentice. It was his other student that worried him. She had come a long way too. She absorbed information like a sponge - far faster than Naruto could. But her problems lay in application. He could teach her a genjutsu and she could perform it perfectly after a few tries, but her chakra reserves and bodily strength was still pitifully low. She had stopped eating like an ant and started exercising, but it appeared that she was simply not genetically disposed to building high amounts of muscle. It wasn't entirely surprising, seeing as she came from a civilian family, but it was depressing. Naruto was surpassing her completely and it was causing tensions in the team.

He turned a bend in the river so find Sakura balanced in the middle, jogging upstream so slowly that she was running in place. He could see the sweat beading on her brow as she exerted all the effort she could, but eventually she lapsed, her chakra ran out, and she plunged below the surface. Kakashi quickly darted under and fished her out, pulling her to the bank and making sure she was awake. If he couldn't solve the Sakura problem, his team would fall apart all over again.

* * *

Naruto was gnawing away on some small woodland creature, while Kakashi and Sakura sat around the campfire, looking a bit more reserved. Kakashi had managed to finish his meal in an instant without taking off his mask, and Sakura was worrying her food. Naruto put down the stripped bone and smiled at his teammate.

"Doesn't taste as nice as when you win, Sakura-chan, but it was still really good. Thanks, sensei! Not as good as ramen, though..." he muttered.

"Ne, Naruto, can I talk to you?" Sakura asked.

"Of course you can. Why'd you ask?"

"No, I mean alone." She gave Kakashi a beseeching glance and the jonin made himself scarce.

"Naruto..." she began. "Have you noticed how you're winning the bell test competitions every night now? It's been a few weeks and I haven't won once."

"Oh, I'm sorry, but you know you'd hate it if I tried to let you win. You know how lucky I am. Remember that random hit on sensei with the mud bullet? Lucky stuff like that seems to be happening more often. I'm just on a lucky streak - you'll get one soon too, believe it!"

"Naruto, that isn't luck. That's you getting more and more skilled. You can use four elements now, of course sensei is going to have trouble keeping up. And now that you can use that chakra folding thing, you've started being able to get him with collaboration jutsu. I can't compete with that."

It was true. Naruto had discovered that, with chakra folding, he could store multiple types of chakra in his tenketsu. If he released them at once, they could combine to make different effects. Mixing fire with earth made for rivers of scalding mud, or fire with water made a steam that could rip the bark off trees and superboil the sap inside. He'd never tried it on a human, though.

"So I'm picking up the training faster than you? There's a first time for everything, Sakura. Maybe you just need to be more patient."

"I am being patient, Naruto, but we've been here nearly three months and I can feel hardly any improvement! I can cast genjutsu and use healing techniques, but I still barely have the chakra to use them consistently or the strength to last in a prolonged battle."

"I… hell, I don't know. What do we do?"

Unbeknownst to them, Kakashi  _had_ been listening in, and he shared the same fears as his students. He'd come up with a few ideas, but nothing that could-

"Maybe I could make a seal," Naruto blurted out.

Both Kakashi and Sakura stared at him. Kakashi knew that Naruto was capable with seals, but Sakura only knew about the exploding notes and storage seals Naruto had been making.

"A seal? How will that help? It's not like an explosive note or storage seal will help me," she replied.

"A storage seal might work. I could store some of my chakra in a seal, apply it to you, and then have it inject chakra into your system. The extra stress on your tenketsu would widen them, prompting your body to create more of its own chakra. It would hurt, but it might work."

"How would something like that even work? It would probably just make my chakra points explode. It's never been done before."

"Not true, Sakura. It has been done before. In fact, that's the reason I have so much chakra."

Sakura stood up in shock and started pacing.

"You mean you've had this way of getting stronger all along and not told me? Thanks a lot, Naruto, that was really helpful."

"The seal was applied when I was a baby, and I've only just come to understand it. And there's another reason I've been hesitant to tell you…" Naruto trailed off.

In the bushes, Kakashi looked on solemnly. He was going to need to intervene if things went sour soon.

"Do you remember the stories of the Kyūbi and how it was defeated?"

Sakura looked at Naruto with a patronising expression.

"Who exactly do you think you're talking to?"

"Then you should know that it doesn't make sense. Bijū are made of chakra. Even if they're destroyed, they just reform a few years later."

"I assumed that the Fourth sealed it in another dimension or something with his Flying Thunder God technique."

"He did seal it away. But in the only place he could. In a newborn child."

Sakura stared at him with open eyes as everything started to fall into place. The sour looks from the villagers, her mother's warnings when she was a child, Naruto's birthday, the foul chakra that she'd felt on the bridge…

"You?" she stated, more than asked.

"Yeah, me," Naruto said. "The Kyūbi was sealed inside me when I was a child. That's why I have so much chakra. Maybe that's why a seal might work for you."

"Then you-" Memories of the boy's days in the Academy flashed back to her, as she realised that all the scorn she had thought he had deserved was due to other reasons. She hurtled past the fire and wrapped Naruto up in her arms, cradling his head and rocking him back and forth.

"I'm so sorry…" she muttered.

Out of earshot, Kakashi relaxed and stood down from attention. He'd been ready to intervene had Sakura taken things the wrong way. He knew that she'd lost her father in the Kyūbi attack, and could have made the wrong assumptions.

Naruto had his head pressed against her undeveloped chest, and could feel the tears trickling down the back of his neck. After a point in his childhood, Naruto had accepted that nobody would ever feel sorry for his lot in life, and had resolved not to feel sorry for himself, either. He didn't need this. But, as she rocked back and forth, shedding tears over the cruelty of children, Naruto realised that Sakura needed the comfort more than he did. He wrapped his arms around her and reciprocated the hug, ignoring the painful pressure on his neck as she clutched him tighter.

Kakashi gave a wan smile as he gazed at his students. He'd need to keep an eye out on Naruto when he started developing that seal for Sakura, but this interaction had taken a weight off his mind. His fears of having another team fall apart seemed unfounded, at least for now.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you see me getting anal about how sealing works?
> 
> Responses to reviews from elsewhere:
> 
> Kamen Rider Extreme: I've already written about 50,000 words of this fic and can tell you that I currently don't intend for the physical element of chakra to be used like KI, or for the spiritual element to be used like reiatsu. But there is a timeskip in which plenty of things happen, so I may factor this idea in after that. Thanks. Honestly, the name is the thing I put the least amount of time into and I will probably change it again to something a little more fitting and original. I got to 50,000 with 'untitled project' so clearly I need to have a think.
> 
> GeassDragon: You're right that Sakura wasn't ready for the Sharingan eye when it was given to her. I don't believe that it requires so much chakra that uncovering it briefly would kill her, but I take your point. The Hokage thought that the possibility of her obtaining the Mangekyo Sharingan outweighed the costs of her death. That, and he was confident that she could train up her chakra reserves when Anko wasn't training them, and he was unsure whether Naruto would accept the eye if Sakura didn't get the other. He's a real stickler for his idea of fairness and Hiruzen knew that a jinchūriki with a Mangekyo Sharingan would be unstoppable. At this point in the fic Sakura can manage about a minute with her eye uncovered before being at serious risk. Sakura's primary role in the manga is as a healer, but I don't think a genjutsu specialism is too far removed from that, with her perfect control, and Itachi has shown that a genjutsu-using Sharingan wielder is terrifying.

**Author's Note:**

> I like having ANs at the bottom, and if you want to skip them and blaze through the story, go nuts. I don't think any of my ideas are original, but none are intentional plagiarism; I've just read so much by now that all the fanon has blurred into one. If you see a concept that you think's lifted from another fic, shout it out, give me a reference if possible, and I'll verify in the next AN. I'm unfamiliar with AOOO posting customs so let me know if I'm doing anything wrong.


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